John Farrell again declined to make official the worst-kept secret at JetBlue Park — “We’ll have something tomorrow,” the manager said on Wednesday — but Lester will make his fourth straight Opening Day start for the Red Sox when the season opens on Monday at Camden Yards. Only three Red Sox pitchers since 1914 have made more Opening Day starts than Lester — Pedro Martinez, Roger Clemens and Dennis Eckersley.

While Lester appreciates the honor, even more significant about Monday will be the chance to feel something he hasn’t felt since last October — adrenaline.

“I can’t wait for Opening Day,” Lester said, “to recreate that feeling of the adrenaline rush, fighting, grinding things out. The last we remember, we were fighting for a World Series, and that’s hard to forget, that’s hard for your body to forget. We’re out there trying to do our job with nothing behind us as far as adrenaline and consequences, and it sometimes can be difficult.”

Few scenarios generate as little adrenaline as pitching on back fields to overmatched minor-leaguers, as Lester did on Wednesday afternoon. He threw 95 pitches in six innings against High-A hitters from the Minnesota organization, striking out seven and walking three while giving up one run on three hits.

The point of the exercise was to get Lester close to 100 pitches without showing him to the Baltimore Orioles, the team he’ll be facing in five days — and the team that made the trip to JetBlue Park on Wednesday.

No matter where he pitched on Wednesday — on the back fields or in the main stadium, both under the Florida sun — it would have had little in common with pitching in Busch Stadium in Game Five of the World Series.

Monday in Baltimore figures to have a significantly different feel — something close to the feel he had last October, something that can’t help but add a sharpness to the way he pitches.

“When you get down here and you have some of our first bullpens, we’re out there cussing four pitches in,” he said. “The last we remember is when we were locked in and fighting for our lives. Then you get into situations like today, situations in games like this, where you just have to create some sort of atmosphere to where you try to get back into that.”

For Lester, Opening Day in five days also represents a potential deadline in his negotiations with the Red Sox on a contract extension. Both Lester and Boston general manager Ben Cherington have expressed their preference that the negotiations be resolved by the time the season starts.

Lester had little progress to report on Wednesday, just as Cherington had little progress to report when he met with reporters to announce the David Ortiz contract extension on Monday. Both sides have expressed vague optimism but little more.

“The biggest thing is they’re still talking,” Lester said. “We know how some of these things go — guys blow up on each other and things end pretty quickly. It’s a positive that they’re still talking, and we’ll keep going from there.”

The disintegration of talks between Cy Young winner Max Scherzer and the Detroit Tigers appeared to shed some light on the price for pitching. Various reports indicated that Scherzer turned down a six-year, $144-million offer — an offer Boston almost certainly will not make to Lester — before the Tigers issued something of an antagonistic news release ending negotiations.

If there’s an impasse between the Red Sox and the Lester camp, though, it’s almost certainly south of that number.

“That’s hard to walk away from,” Lester said when asked specifically about the Scherzer situation.

If the finish line is in sight by Opening Day, the Red Sox might continue talks with Lester’s representatives — the same agents who negotiated the team-friendly extension Dustin Pedroia signed last June. If a gulf still exists, talks might be tabled until October.

“We’re not just going to end something just to end something because it’s Opening Day,” Lester said. “If we’re close, yeah, we’ll carry it over. I don’t think that’s a distraction. But I feel like if things are nowhere near being done, that’s a good thing for both sides — you can come out and say what needs to be said about it and put it on the back burner and worry about playing baseball then.”

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